altogether more charming older sister of my grandmother, who
a diet that consisted almost solely of doughnuts and cigarettes.
not-lingerie relative, but my mother
and grandmother were wont to remark
on our physical resemblance, and my
mother, perhaps dabbling in projection,
on our similar temperaments and taste
for fun. Had her definition of “fun”
included “expensive,” and perhaps it did,
I think I can now see her point, though
I’m more apt to bypass the diamonds
in favor of a safari and a beruffled
blouse. I personally think the physical
likeness dubious aside from a certain
fullness of face and figure otherwise
not common in our family’s womenfolk.
She was moreover by all accounts a
highly fastidious woman, having her
clothes tailor-made for her at Marshall
Field’s, whereas I shop happily off the
rack, not to mention online (I have
ModCloth bookmarked), though I do
have my particularities about cuts. My
mother kept a whole chest of Aunt

Judy’s angora cardigans preserved in
moth balls in her bedroom, treasures
that she never dared to wash or wear,
but that she brought out at times, like
sartorial gold, merely to gaze upon
as an accruing investment, never to
spend. She had me try some on at one
point in my adolescence, but, although
I could see they were finely made and
well preserved, the moth ball scent
and outdated fashion deterred me
from fully embracing their regal vintage
splendor, especially during the height of
the 90s Grunge era. I hadn’t yet come
into my early 20th-century fashion
sense and failed to fully appreciate my
inheritance. Somehow, by that time,
my jazz records had also long since
disappeared, and I had taken honors
in my last piano competition. Yet my
mother never threw away the sweaters,
likely cherishing a secret hope that

FICTION

N I C H E

they would come to life again someday
through someone who knew their
worth, even if only on herself in front of
the bedroom mirror.
Justine, like myself, was of the non
childbearing feminine sort, though
whether that was entirely her choice
I’ll never know; people just didn’t ask
questions “like that,” as they said,
in those days, and my mother was
certainly nothing if not far from candid
when it came to the juicy stuff. It was
my father, an entirely different animal
as well as gender, who told me the
reason why my maternal grandmother
wasn’t on speaking terms with one of
her other sisters: my grandmother had
slept with her lothario brother-in-law
and been discovered by the overly
trusting sibling in coitus after coming
home from the market. Such stories
just didn’t fall from my mother’s lips. Sex
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